Scott Wood, Ph.D.

Prior to coming to APU, Wood conducted research in clinical (Legacy Health Systems, Portland, Oregon), military (Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, Pensacola, Florida) and space (NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas) laboratories. His area of expertise is in the field of neuroscience, with emphasis on sensory systems physiology and sensorimotor control.

Wood’s research focuses on how the central nervous system resolves ambiguous sensory cues regarding orientation and motion in order to maintain accurate spatial awareness. Sensorimotor function depends on a learned ability to interpret multiple sensory signals. This wonderfully redundant network means that one system can compensate for limitations in another. This redundancy also sets up the possibility for sensory conflict when input from one system becomes different, either through aging, pathology or environmental change.

His principal research goal is to understand the mechanisms of multisensory integration and neural plasticity and apply this knowledge to improve rehabilitation strategies and optimize human performance.